Analysis : Dimitar Berbatov | Whats wrong and what changed ?

I’m one of the fans of Manchester United, who argued that Berbatov is not flop at Old Trafford. I defended him every time some made a comment on this either it is about his laziness or lack of goals etc.. Many United fans nick named him Berbaflop but the same people are now eating their own words after seeing him this season.

Was something changed or is he changed ? No… he wasn’t changed but the difference is the arrogance is back in Berbatov. 🙂 . this statement looks funny but its true. In the last 2 seasons we didn’t saw the arrogance of berbatov much.  He is the best when he drops deep, collects the ball and then plays it to the front player or target man. when i wrote arrogance, its the way he passes the ball. He doesn’t care about his pass but it will be accurate enough to find the right person with good timing.  You saw the in the last match when he took his shirt off after scoring that brilliant airborne volly.

With Tottenham

Remember his days at Spurs. He and Keane formed a wonderful partnership and he is the focal point of the spurs attack. Here is his passes from one the matches he played well for Spurs. You can see here that he likes to drop deep and involve in buildup play.

First season at United

Now at United, in his first season he has Ronaldo and Rooney. Ronaldo used to be the target for United attack and rooney played on the left. This left Berbatov with limited chances to score. Here is Berbatov’s average positions from his 1st season at Old Trafford.

He may have just nine league goals to his name, but he has 10assists also. He even finished fourth in the overall Actim index with 586 points, with his 652 passes the eighth most in the league.

Second season at United

Now into the second season he played along side Rooney when we lineup 4-4-2 but later we switched to 4-3-3 with Rooney alone upfront. Here is the Berbatov’s position diagram.

Generally, the second striker will not play a huge amount of passes, but will look to provide key passes that will lead directly to goals. But Berbatov has more passes and involved more in the build up play. The role that SAF gave him is unique. His game is to keep position in tight situations up on the pitch and to keep the attacking play and importantly to provide the pressure on the opposition team.

Now, in this season he played well and did what exactly he has been assigned. He played in support of Rooney as a second striker. it is common that the second striker generally gets less number of passes. but he has huge contribution to the team. Look at these stats below.

He was a creative, deep-lying, playmaker sort of striker. we need to see him as a striker who could do things besides scoring goals better. So he was always going to be unsuited to being a lone striker.

Sadly when he was alone upfront, the team didn’t delivered him what they does for Rooney and he was also suddenly into new shoes which he never tried before.

United played [attacked] more on the wings last season.

If you see the berbatov’s passing, he mostly plays through the middle and short passes and also will pass very few to the wingers. This means when berbatov plays as lone striker, we have less no of chances coming from the wings unlike when we have rooney, who prefers sending the pass to wingers and wait for cross.

Otherwise, the midfield has to feed the ball to wingers, at which i think we failed towards end of last season.

Third season at United

A lot has been talked before the season starts. There is a talk of his transfer, Sir Alex finally loosing faith in him etc.. But before the pre-season SAF made it clear the he is staying and no question of offloading him. In the pre-season games he showed good form and scored some goals. now United is playing 4-4-2 with Berbatov behind Rooney. Things started working…. here is his passing map from guardian chalkboards

Look at that passing… he was everywhere on the pitch except defense. He played more infront of Scholes and Fletcher. Did you observed it? He is passing the ball more to wingers especially Nani who is on the right side. He is excellent so far in the last 4matches. He is making a good partnership with Rooney this season and we observed that he is well suited for Hernandez. To Berbatov’s game, an out and out striker in 4-4-2 is well suited.

The one word that almost most of hte united fans are behind in this summer is ‘play maker’. You have Paul Scholes in your team and with this new improvements of Berbatov, you have second play maker. If you don’t think so look at what happens when we substituted berbatov in the games so far this season. Also look at the passing and attack when both Scholes and Berbatov are taken off in the game against Westham. Do you agree that we took long time to understand him?

So what changed for Berbatov ?

1. Nothing 2. He is involving in build up play and linking well with Nani. 3. His teammates started to pass him the ball more. 4. Behind the rooney he is playing like connector between midfield and attack. 5. He started passing ball to wingers more 6. He is clear on his role and responsibility 7. I think we’ve found where he is more effective.

Didn’t we, finally learned what he brings to team and how to watch him?